Lunacy
by hyacinthian
Summary: Elizabeth, Atlantis does not exist.


A/N: Unbetaed, so all the mistakes are mine. And this is sooooo John/Elizabeth. Leave feedback if you can spare the time.

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The woman across from him was strong. Strong-willed. But weren't they all when they came here? He looked at her. Her stay here had definitely affected her in a negative way. Her skin was a pallid color, an unhealthy pale, ghostly white. Her hair strands had begun to stick together, to clump into tendrils from too few combings and washings. Then again, the workers here hardly enjoyed doling those out in the first place. Her arms were growing weaker. The food here hardly served as nutritious. And by the looks of the dark circles beneath her eyes, she hardly slept. His eyes fell to her wrists. They were bruised purple where she had been restrained to the chair on a daily basis. He tapped his pen against the clipboard. 

"Elizabeth." Her head barely lifted, eyes coming to acknowledge him. At first, he had thought that she was beginning to break down. Her eyes showed the same kind of deadness that all the patients here exhibited. But when he asked about that place—that goddamned place—he knew that the strength would return to her eyes and no amount of electricity could rid of the strength. He gritted his teeth. They'd see. He hadn't lost a patient yet. They all succumbed, one way or another, quickly or eventually. Elizabeth Weir was no exception. She would give in, just like they all had. Acknowledge the real reality.

"Yes?" Her voice seemed shaky. He had taken a look at her resume. She had once been a powerful woman. Worked in the highest thresholds of Washington, knew the darkest secrets of the country and the government, and then, one day, just cracked. Started talking about Atlantis, talking about people that didn't exist and she was sent here. Well, he'd cure her. For sure. A mockery. She was a mockery of the very diplomats she used to meet with. She had the same negotiating tone in her voice.

"Atlantis does not exist."

She shook her head vehemently. "It does. Atlantis is located in…"

"Elizabeth."

"…the Pegasus Galaxy. We were an…"

"Elizabeth."

"…expeditionary crew. We were just sent there to explore, and we…"

"Elizabeth!"

"…just wanted to search for a little bit, try and figure out how the Ancients worked. Archaeologist Daniel Jackson figured it out…"

Now he was getting frustrated. "_Elizabeth_!"

"…but, as he couldn't come, we got Rodney McKay—" At the sight of the most imperceptible nod, the switch had been thrown and her painful scream rang through the small room.

"Elizabeth," he began, restraining his voice to a calm, soothing tone. "I thought we were making progress. I thought you were getting better."

"I'm not sick."

"Elizabeth, you know that denial does no one good."

"I'm not in denial."

"You know those people don't exist. You've been here for weeks now. You have to know that those people don't exist. John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Carson Beckett, Radek Zelenka…they're all people you made up in your head. You weren't happy with your life and you made up people and a world so that you didn't have to deal with your life."

"That's not it! They're real! We lived there!" He tipped his head slightly again, and she could hear it this time, the surging electricity. A shriek ripped through her throat, a painful, gripping shriek, and her wrists struggled against her restraints. The doctor raised an eyebrow. So that was how all her bruises began. He observed her, and noted the faintest flicker, realizing her eyes had deadened further. She was breaking down. Slowly but surely.

"Elizabeth, you have to deal with reality."

"Deal with reality," her voice droned, repeating his words.

"Atlantis isn't real."

She took a breath. "Atlantis…isn't real."

"John Sheppard isn't real."

"No," she cried. "He's real. He's coming to save me. He's coming to save me." Her voice reduced to just a murmur, but he followed her gaze to the door. He shook his head.

"If he's coming to save you, where is he?" He got up, setting the clipboard down on the sofa and walking over to her. He stooped to look in her eyes, brown and unruly. His large rough hands settled on her shoulders and he shook her. His rough voice shook her down to her soul. "If he's coming to save you, where the hell is he?"

The tears began to stream down her face, heart breaking as he began to make her reality come down further. Maybe he wasn't coming. Maybe he had forgotten about her. Or maybe the doctor was right and he never really existed at all. "He wouldn't leave me," she whispers. "He wouldn't leave me here in this place."

"Does he love you, this John Sheppard?" He figured that he would play along with her little fantasy and break it down, detail by detail, until she had to face the hard facts. The EST wasn't working as well as he had wanted it to, and liquifying her brain would not do them any good. Her eyes stared off into space, fixing on an invisible point. A dreamy look washed over her, a small smile fixing on her lips.

"I—I don't know. I—maybe."

"If he loves you, where the hell is he?" He settled his hands on her shoulders again and shook her roughly. "Look at that door. Stare at it all night, for all I care. He's not coming, Elizabeth. He's not coming!"

"No!" she cried, tears falling faster. "He's coming. He's coming." Her voice dropped down to a whisper. "He has to be coming."

"Elizabeth, when will you realize that he's not coming because he's not real?"

"He's—he's not real?" her voice seemed to question her own reality. Yes, this was good. Finally. She then shook her head. "No. No, he's real. I remember—I remember kissing him. He—he's coming. He has to be coming." Time for Plan B.

"He's not coming, Elizabeth."

"He has to be!"

"If he knew about you being here, which you said he does since you're saying he'll save you, why didn't he save you yet? You've been here for weeks. Why didn't he come earlier? Does he want you to suffer? Or is it that he doesn't love you? You just wanted to feel loved and you _made him up in your head because you were lonely_!"

"I didn't make him up!" she yelled back. Her frustration seemed to be wearing her down to her last nerve.

"Elizabeth, if you keep telling lies, I'll have to tell him to shock you again."

"I'm not lying!"

"John Sheppard doesn't exist. He doesn't love you because he doesn't exist. You have to learn this."

"He exists!"

"You're here because you had a major breakdown, and your friends tell me they've suspected for a while that you've been using drugs. That could contribute to your mental state. Is that why you made those friends up? Rodney, John, all of them? Even the alien ones? The drugs made you feel lonelier?"

"I don't take drugs. And they exist! All of them!" He whispered something to them, something she couldn't overhear, and then she could hear it, feel it, all the way down to her bones. They flipped the switch. And the physics, the wonderful physics she loved so much, it was going against her, the voltage traveling straight to her. She shrieked even louder as the pain gripped her, her wrists struggling against their binds.

_Elizabeth? _She can hear his voice in her head. She perks up for a second, despite the burning pain throughout her entire body. "John?" she calls for him. He orders another round. She screams again, her throat raw from her body's natural reaction to pain. She feels weak, and she feels disengaged. _Elizabeth? Elizabeth, where are you? _Here, she wants to shout. She wants to let him know so that he can find her, but she doesn't know where he is. Is he in her head like the doctor said? She can hear his voice, but where is he coming from? _Elizabeth, where are you? _She can hear the frustrated steps in her mind, can picture his facial expression, his worry.

"Elizabeth, he's not real! He doesn't exist!" Another round and this time, her body listens to her and gives her a brief reprieve. She falls into the abyss and embraces the darkness.

She wakes up to find a familiar pair of warm eyes greet her. She sobs, not even trying to hide it, ignoring that she's in the Atlantean infirmary and that Carson and Rodney are trying not to look embarrassed…or look at all…as she reaches for him, burying her head into his shoulder, hands desperately trying to push him closer. Her fingers are curling, limp and weak, but her hands still have the strength, the need to push him closer to her. Her tears are wetting him, but he doesn't care. Deep sobs wrack her body as she's trying to deal with this new thing, this fact that he exists. "I thought you weren't real," she whispers into his shirt, heated breath against him. "I thought I was crazy. I thought I made you up." She cries further, and tries to wash herself, bathe herself in that warm masculine scent of his that just makes her sigh. "You're real, you're real." When she finally pulls herself away, he takes a hand and gently brushes her hair back.

"It's all right, Elizabeth. You weren't crazy. Just…a prisoner." He recites the name of the alien group that took her, their plan, and how they had tortured her for hours that seemed like days. She's too dazed to remember anything but the feeling of electricity against all too human flesh. Carson comes along then and tells her the extent of her injuries, that she'll need to be closely monitored for quite a while and that John could assume her duties for the time being. She nods. Her eyes flit around the room.

Carson, Rodney, Zelenka, Ronon, Teyla, Cadman, Heightmeyer, Sheppard. They were real. All of them.

His hand is against her hair again, softly stroking it. The motion soothes her, and she blinks away her tears of pain and her tears of almost surrendering. He calms her into a soft sleep, even though she doesn't want to sleep. He whispers something to her, something that she can't understand. The last thing she feels before she falls asleep is the feeling of his soft lips against her cheek.


End file.
